Post navigation

New Releases January 25–January 31 and Readers Choice Contest

We wrap up the month of January new releases with an impressive list. Almost two dozen, in fact, so there goes the book money you’ve saved the last couple of weeks! And holy cow, but there are some good ones here. Can you say BONES?

What do you want to read this week? As always, leave a comment telling me the book you’d most like to win, and maybe random.org will make your wishes come true. Your choice of print or digital unless otherwise stated. International? Of course! As long as Book Depository delivers to your country, please enter. If you’d prefer the first book in a series listed here, that’s okay, too.

On the planet Ilmatar, under a roof of ice a kilometer thick, a team of deep-sea diving scientists investigates the blind alien race that lives below. The Terran explorers have made an uneasy truce with the Sholen, their first extraterrestrial contact: so long as they don’t disturb the Ilmataran habitat, they’re free to conduct their missions in peace. But when Henri Kerlerec, media personality and reckless adventurer, ends up sliced open by Ilmatarans, tensions between Terran and Sholen erupt. Against the backdrop of deep-sea guerrilla conflict, a new age of human exploration begins as alien cultures collide. Both sides seek the aid of the newly enlightened Ilmatarans. But what this struggle means for the natives, and the future of human exploration, is anything but certain.

A different kingdom of wolves, woods and stranger, darker, creatures lies in wait for Michael Fay in the woods at the bottom of his family’s farm. Michael Fay is a normal boy, living with his grandparents on their family farm in rural Ireland. In the woods there are wolves; and other things, dangerous things. He doesn’t tell his family, not even his Aunt Rose, his closest friend. And then, as Michael wanders through the trees, he finds himself in the Other Place. There are strange people, and monsters, and a girl called Cat. When the wolves follow him from the Other Place to his family’s doorstep, Michael must choose between locking the doors and looking away, or following Cat on an adventure that may take an entire lifetime in the Other Place.

Rome was the center of the most powerful empire the world had ever seen, but that didn’t stop it falling to Alaric the Goth, his horde of barbarian tribesmen and their wild spell-casting shamans. The victors carved up the empire into a series of bickering states which were never more than an insult away from war. A thousand years later, and Europe has become an almost civilized place. The rulers of the old Roman palatinates confine their warfare to the short summer months and trade flourishes along the rivers and roads. Even the barbarians’ gods have been tamed. But it looks like the gods are going to have the last laugh before they slip quietly into ill-remembered obscurity.

Eve Bradley was undercover looking for a story, not a cause. But something about the man they called Subject Thirteen got her involved. The scientists said he was a devil, and they had a decent case: Terrifying power. A bad attitude. And looks that could lead anyone to sin. Cain O’Connor knows the minute he catches her candy scent that Eve could drive him wild. But she’s a threat, in a way no one has been for him in years. She’s safer away from him, too. But with a powerful conspiracy determined to shut Eve up for good, there’s no time to argue. All they can do is trust their instincts, and their hearts.

We’re the D’Artigo sisters: savvy half-human, half-Fae ex-operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. My sister Camille is a wicked good witch with three gorgeous husbands. Delilah is a two-faced werecat and a Death Maiden. I’m Menolly, a vampire married to a scorching hot werepuma. Back in Otherworld, war has decimated the elfin city of Elqaneve, our father has gone missing, and Shadow Wing has managed to obtain another spirit seal. Somebody burned down my bar, the Wayfarer. We still haven’t found a way to stop Lowestar Radcliff, the daemon in charge of a supernatural corporate power grab. He’s attempting to awaken Suvika, the lord of vice and corrupt businessmen. Our enemies are closing in on all sides, and this time, there’s no place to hide.

Chanku spirit guide Igmutaka has known since the day he held the newborn daughter of Tala and Mik Fuentes in his hands, that she would grow up to be his. No one thought to copy Mikaela Star. After years of avoiding her spirit guide, Star has decided to return to Montana and face the man who has haunted her nights. She takes a vacation in California, where Igmutaka happens to be waiting. Sunny Daye has known this day was coming. She and Ig have been lovers for years, but both of them accept that they are not meant to be a mated pair. When Igmutaka tells Sunny her man is “out there, and coming closer,” she can barely contain her excitement. Fen Ahlberg is not what Sunny expected. He is so much more that his mere existence may change the Chanku forever.

In the Provincial Union of Victoriana, a steampunk America that lost the Revolutionary War, Charmian “Kit” Kittredge makes her living investigating crimes of magic. She follows mysteries wherever they lead. Kit doesn’t believe in magic, but she can’t refuse to help Lady Diana Walsh, who claims a curse is viciously wounding her while she sleeps. Kit becomes convinced that the attacks are part of a more ominous plot. Kit must also skirt the attentions of a nefarious deathmage and the scrutiny of the police chief inspector. Unwilling to surrender to either man’s passion for her, Kit struggles to remain independent as she draws closer to the heart of the mystery. The truth promises to ruin her life, and turn Rumsen into a supernatural battleground from which no one will escape.

Rudi is a cook in a Kraków restaurant. But when his boss asks Rudi to help a cousin escape from the country he’s trapped in, a new career, part spy, part people-smuggler, begins. Europe has fractured into countless tiny nations, duchies, polities and republics. Recruited by the shadowy organization Les Coureurs des Bois, Rudi is schooled in espionage. When a training mission to The Line, a sovereign nation consisting of a trans-Europe railway line, goes wrong, he is arrested, beaten and Coureur Central must attempt a rescue. He is sent to smuggle someone out of Berlin and finds a severed head inside a locker instead. Rudi begins to realize that underneath his daily round of plot and counter plot, behind the conflicting territories, a different reality might be pulling the strings.

When Ted Hall’s birthday dinner in San Francisco’s famous Chinatown ends with an explosion, the fire department blames a gas leak. When Ted finds strange, personalized messages from the restaurant’s fortune cookies scattered around his apartment, his suspicions are aroused. His travels appear to coincide with murders by the notorious Hang Wire Killer. The circus has come to town, but the Celtic dancers are taking their pagan act a little too seriously and the manager of the Olde Worlde Funfair has started talking to his vintage machines. While the new acrobat is wowing the crowds, his frequent absences are causing tension. There are other new arrivals, immortals searching for an ancient power, awakening something awful buried beneath the San Andreas fault, a primal evil which, if not stopped, will destroy the entire world. (U.S. Release)

My name’s Markowski. I carry a badge. Also, a crucifix, some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets. A new supernatural gang is intent on invading Scranton, as if I didn’t have enough to contend with. Supernatural gang warfare? Not on my watch.

Vicious interstellar conflict with an indestructible alien species. Bloody civil war over the last habitable zones of the cosmos. Political unrest, militaristic police forces, dire threats to the solar system. Humanity is on the ropes, and after years of fighting a two-front war with losing odds, so is Commonwealth Defense Corps officer Andrew Grayson. He dreams of dropping out of the service one day, alongside his pilot girlfriend, but as warfare consumes entire planets and conditions on Earth deteriorate, he wonders if there will be anywhere left for them to go. Grayson is reassigned to a ship bound for a distant colony and packed with malcontents and troublemakers. His most dangerous battle has just begun.

Her brother was mysteriously murdered with no witnesses, clues, or motives. Yet Violet Castanega knows he won’t be the last to die unless she seeks help. But the Hidden’s law enforcement won’t come to the aid of her rowdy dragon clan, and the only person who will listen to her is one tough cop. Violet has tangled with him before, and it got rough. This time, it’s getting hot. Powerful Guard member Kade Kavanaugh has been ordered to take out Violet Castanega. While assassination orders don’t come with explanations, his instincts scream that killing the feisty beauty is wrong. Now Kade must put his career, not to mention his life, on the line to save her. But as the passion, and the danger, heat up between Kade and Violet, can they survive the darkest magick of all?

Master swordsman Rigel not only defeated the horrific monsters of the Starlands, but also thwarted Prince Vildiar’s dark designs to conquer the elven realms. Rigel refuses to return to Earth, consumed as he is by love for the newly crowned Queen Talitha. Vildiar has hatched multiple conspiracies to usurp the throne, and a vision has revealed that if Rigel and Talitha ever consummate their love, it will only hasten Rigel’s inevitable demise. Rigel never hesitates to defend the land and people he has taken on as his own. As traitors plot Talitha’s downfall, Rigel rescues one of Vildiar’s own half-breed offspring from Earth and offers her a new life in the Starlands. But will she embrace this gift without guile, or is she preparing to plunge a dagger into Rigel’s back?

Darrow is a miner and a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. He digs all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of the planet livable for future generations. Darrow has never seen the sky. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better future for his children. He discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow and Reds like him are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. Darrow joins a resistance group in order to infiltrate the ruling class and destroy society from within. He will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies, even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

Across the country and in every nation, people began “coming up Latent,” developing terrifying powers. Those who Manifest must choose: become a sheepdog who protects the flock or a wolf who devours it. Lieutenant Colonel Jan Thorsson, call sign “Harlequin,” becomes a hero and a pariah to the military that is the only family he’s ever known. Oscar Britton is positioned to lead a rebellion in exile, but a rival beats him to the punch: Scylla, a walking weapon who will stop at nothing to end the human-sanctioned apartheid against her kind. When Scylla’s inhuman forces invade New York City, the Supernatural Operations Corps are the only soldiers equipped to prevent a massacre. Harlequin will be forced to face off with this havoc-wreaking woman from his past.

Ocyrhoe, a young, cunning fugitive from Rome, safeguards a chalice of subtle but great power. Finding herself in France, she allies with the persecuted, pacifist Cathar sect in their legendary mountaintop stronghold, Montségur. There she resists agents of the Roman Church and its Inquisition, fights off escalating, bloody besiegement by troops of the King of France, and shields the mysterious cup from the designs of many. Percival, the heroic Shield-Brethren knight from The Mongoliad, is also drawn to Montségur, where the chalice holds the key to his destiny. Arrayed against Percival and Ocyrhoe are enemies both old and new. who are determined to reveal the secrets of the Shield-Brethren with the hope of destroying the order once and for all.

Stacy Easter has seen better days. Being a librarian is a labor of love, if only paying her bills were half as much fun. What’s a single, bookish beauty in sleepy Nodaway Falls, New York, supposed to do? Stacy decides to develop her special powers. She’s got clients lining up to receive her signature potions, until a few of them go awry. Her own life has just taken a storybook turn: Leo North, the official One Who Got Away, is back in town. Stacy’s best friends, Peach and Liv, are more concerned about the state of her heart than the side effects of a few rogue magic spells. But someone with dark intentions is crossing magical wires all over Nodaway Falls, and those closest to Stacy are at risk. Can Stacy conjure up a way out of this mess with her life?

Up From the Grave (Night Huntress #7), by Jeaniene Frost, (January 28 Avon)

There’s always one more grave to dig. Lately, life has been unnaturally calm for vampires Cat Crawfield and her husband Bones. They should have known better than to relax their guard, because a shocking revelation sends them back into action to stop an all-out war. A rogue CIA agent is involved in horrifying secret activities that threaten to raise tensions between humans and the undead to dangerous heights. Now Cat and Bones are in a race against time to save their friends from a fate worse than death…because the more secrets they unravel, the deadlier the consequences. And if they fail, their lives, and those of everyone they hold dear, will be hovering on the edge of the grave.

Vivian Maylor is trying to hold it together. But her attempts to build a life with the man she loves seem doomed by the dragon inside her yearning to break free. Vivian is a dreamshifter, the last line of defense between reality and the dreamworld, and the only one of her kind. Weston Jennings also believes he is the only one of his kind. He fears his powers as a dreamshifter, and resists learning to control them. After suffering a tragic loss, Weston heads deep into the woods of the Pacific Northwest to embrace a safe life of solitude. When a terrible mistake leads to an innocent’s death, his guilt drives him to his former home, where he encounters what he never thought he would find: another shifter. Now Vivian and Weston must work together to defeat a new threat to the dreamworld.

Life as a contortionist in Criminy’s Clockwork Caravan should be the height of exotic adventure, but for Demi Ward, it’s total dullsville. Until her best friend, Cherie, is stolen by slavers outside of Paris. Demi is determined to find her. Vale Hildebrand, a rogue of a highwayman, hides Demi from the slavers. He pledges to help her explore the glittering cabarets of Paris to find her friend, but much to Vale’s frustration, Demi soon attracts a host of wealthy admirers. It would be all too easy to accept Cherie’s disappearance as inevitable, but with Vale’s ferocious will and Demi’s drive to find her friend, they soon have a lead on a depraved society of Parisian notables with a taste for beautiful lost girls. Can Demi wind her way through the seedy underbelly of Paris and save her best friend?

The most enigmatic and tortured of the Feral Warriors, Wulfe, is haunted by the quiet beauty of a human woman who no longer remembers him. Once a captive of both the Mage and the Ferals, Natalie stole a piece of his heart before he took her memories and sent her safely back to her fiancé. But now the Mage are threatening her again, and Wulfe will risk anything to protect her. Natalie Cash is stunned when she’s saved by a wolf who shifts suddenly into a splendidly built, if badly scarred, man, a man with the kindest eyes. Swept into a world of intrigue and danger beyond her comprehension, she turns to the powerful Wulfe, finding a passion she’d only dreamed of. But when time runs out, they must trust one another and surrender to a wild, untamed love.

Focusing on the roles of apocalypse in post-World War II Japanese science fiction, Apocalypse in Contemporary Japanese Science Fiction explores how apocalyptic science fiction has served as a coping mechanism for major socio-political changes. Moving from the history of apocalyptic tradition in the West to modern Japanese apocalyptic science fiction in manga and anime as well as novels, Motoko Tanaka shows that the apocalypse mirrored the devastating changes that created serious discontinuity in the Japanese national identity from 1945. This book focuses on the roles of apocalypse in postwar Japanese science fiction for its target audiences, and explores the ways in which apocalyptic ideology has changed since the end of World War II.

Chiliad consists of two interrelated stories, stories filtered through the melancholy imagination of a narrator perched on the banks of a river that flows backward and forward through time. The first movement, ‘Men and Sin,’ takes place in the millennial year of 1000 AD. The second, ‘A Moment at the River s Heart,’ occurs exactly one thousand years, the length of a ‘chiliad’, later, as the new millennium approaches. At the heart of these stories are two savage, seemingly inexplicable atrocities, each of which reaches across the centuries to reflect and connect with the other.

The small print: This contest is international to any place Book Depository ships. Contests end at midnight CDT U.S. on Saturday, and winners will be announced on Sunday’s blog. It’s the responsibility of the winner to contact me with their mailing info.

ooooh… there are some awesome books releasing this week!!! I’m so excited for That Touch of Magic (Nodaway Falls #2), by Lucy March and Wakeworld (The Between #2), by Kerry Schafer and Burn For Me (Phoenix Fire #1), by Cynthia Eden 🙂

Well, this is difficult. I have already pre-ordered all the books I really want. I am way behind on my Jeanine Frost reading, so choosing this one. Lovely choises Suzanne! Question: do you have a new assistant who posts your blog posts now? “Posted by Stephen Jones on January 27, 2014 ” If so, you will have to introduce him to us 🙂

Ha–Stephen has been exposed! Yes, he is my valiant virtual assistant, who formats and schedules the posts for me on weekdays, looks up all those book covers. Oz behind the curtain :-). I’ll have to see if I can bring him out of hiding!

It’s been a while since I’ve actually visited the blog, since I keep up via email, so it may not be new anymore, but — I like the new look!! Very nice 🙂

May we still request a book not on this list that’s in the world of fantasy/paranormal/sci-fi/speculative fiction and releases this week? If so, I’d LOVE to have THE UNBOUND by Victoria Schwab!

If we must choose from the list, that’s certainly fone – there’s a lot to choose from 🙂 There are several in which I’m interested, but I’ve heard great things about RED RISING by Pierce Brown, so I’d like to win that one.

Yikes, there are 4 books that I really want this week – Burn For Me, Up From the Grave, That Touch of Magic, and Wicked After Midnight. Now if only the evil day job would slow down a bit so I could actually do some reading.